Chapter Text
Orion Pax was driving home after a long shift at the docks. His loft apartment, drafty and far from his work as it was, sounded more comforting the closer he got to it.
In short, he was almost in recharge on his tires.
Which made him extremely unwilling to help the clearly overcharged and passed out mech lying in the middle of the street. If it had been any other night, any other shift, he would have gladly called a transport or driven the mech home himself.
As it stood, he was exhausted, and didn’t really want to touch the pitiful figure, covered in every kind of fluid possible and quietly lying in the way, on his front.
He was just about to drive around it when the figure twitched and muttered something about being innocent. That piqued his interest, even tired as he was. He transformed and shook the other mech.
Orion soon realized that the mech was a Seeker. His long, elegant wings and matching frame, smooth and seemingly well-kept were a giveaway from white legs to red chassis. With a jolt, he realized that he knew this Seeker. He had seen him in the archives on weekends and at an annual science convention that the university held every year. It was Starscream: The only Seeker ever to attend the Academy and one of the fastest mechs alive.
Why was he lying out in the streets, overcharged into unconsciousness, with his interface panel open, where any mech could assault him? Wasn’t he supposed to be on an exploration mission?
Orion got the Seeker into his flat bed and began hauling him back to his apartment. He would help the mech recover and then see him to his own home in the morning. Thank Primus it was his day off the next day.
When he got Starscream to his loft, he set him up in the “guest room” and cleaned him up as best he could. With his guest attended to, he went to his own berth and laid down to rest.
Orion woke in the morning to find his guest had purged his tanks in the night and was still unconscious. He was lucky his vents hadn’t clogged. With a sigh, Orion cleaned him up again and patted his wings as he stood up. It had been a long night for the both of them it seemed.
Starscream woke near the beginning of the night cycle, confused and disoriented. “Where am I…?” Looking around, he couldn’t place it. There were lots of windows and they were fairly high up. It was a loft apartment: The kind artists and less wealthy mechs bought. He realized, with a twist in his spark, that he was near the Academy, the University, and the Archives altogether. All the old haunts where he and Skyfire had been until… Until…
He held his helm for a long time, coolant threatening to emerge from his optics.
A hauler mech, apparently the owner, came in with a cube of energon. “Oh, good, you’re awake. You were beginning to worry me. My name is Orion. Orion Pax.” He offered the energon. “Here, you must be low.”
Starscream shook his helm, pushing it away. “No. I don’t want it.”
“Oh. All right.” He took a sip from the cube himself, seemingly just to have something to do.
“How did I get here? Did you take me home? Did we frag?” Starscream bluntly asked.
Orion blushed. “No. I found you in the street.” He set the cube on a table. “I brought you home to make sure you were all right.”
Starscream looked away, muttering, “Almost wish it had been fragging.”
“Why were you out there, Starscream? I will admit, I found you in… a bit of a state.”
“I wanted to be drunk enough not to think.” Starscream snapped. “I wanted to be able to pretend everything is all right again.”
Orion was silent for a long moment. “Well, I don’t know what’s happened, but there’s surely a bright side. You’re still Starscream: Fastest Seeker in the force, one of the fastest mechs anywhere. You’re the only Seeker ever to graduate from the Academy of Science: To top that, you’re one of the most highly decorated mechs from the Academy. You made the Top Ten every semester for all time. You were given a grant for exploration and you’re going to be out there, making discoveries. Frankly, I can’t think of anything better.”
Starscream laughed bitterly, the agony of former glory on his wings as a lead covering. “No, Orion. I was all that, but no more. I imagine you’ll hear about it soon, if you know all that. I’m a murderer: I killed my exploration partner. Now, now I’m nothing.”
Orion was silent for a long moment. “I don’t believe that. If you’d killed your partner, you’d be in prison, not out on the streets getting overcharged.”
“I may as well have killed him and it doesn’t matter. They can’t convict me, but they can disbar me: Take away everything I am. Everything I worked so hard for.”
“What happened?” Orion questioned. “You don’t have to tell me, but… it might help to talk.”
Starscream was silent for a long moment. “We were caught in a blizzard on a planet with some very impressive winds. Skyfire and I were separated. I searched for him until I couldn’t search anymore. Then, when I came home, willing to beg on my wings for help, I was charged with murder and the Council disbarred me.”
Orion listened with lips firmed together. “That’s completely unfair. Surely-”
“There’s nothing I can do or anyone I can go to. I’ve tried, Orion. I’ve tried everything. No one wants to help a Seeker. They’re glad to see me gone, put back in my place.”
“I don’t believe that. You’ve a right to-“
“No, Orion. I have no rights.” Starscream tightly reminded him. “I am a Seeker. I was sparked to a breeding Carrier Mech, put to work when I was barely adult, and I’ve had to squabble and scrape for everything I’ve ever gotten in my life. Every shanix, every scrap, everything. I had to deliberately leave my frametype off my application to the Academy so they would give me scholarships. You should have seen their expressions when I reported.”
Orion set a servo to his helm. “I thought… I thought Vos had her own Academy.”
“We do. If you want to learn how to build machines or repair equipment or to be a better soldier. If you want to stay in Vos, accept that you’ll have to pay almost ninety percent of your wages, compulsorily, for bare minimum living, then there are academies at Vos. If you want to live your life a laborer for the free mechs in Iacon and Praxus, accept the unwanted advances of “superiors,” and die having borne and raised dozens of sparklings you will never see do more than suffer and labor and die just like you, there are academies in Vos. I wanted more, Orion. I wanted to create, to innovate.” Starscream’s lips twisted and his optics started leaking again. Why, why, why was he crying so much? “Was it too much to ask to be allowed to be what I could be instead of what was expected?”
Orion was stunned into silence. If this was true, the economies of Iacon, Praxus, and Vos were totally dependent on near-slave labor.
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t live here anymore. I could barely support myself with full status. Now, how am I to work at my chosen profession? I’ll have to go back to Vos, where Seekers belong, and I’ll have to live and suffer and die like the rest of my people.” He exvented heavily. “But I’ll never bring Sparklings into the world to suffer after me.”
Orion reached out hesitantly and laid a servo on Starscream’s shoulder, offering silent comfort as best he could. “Is there no way for you to stay?”
“I can’t support myself here, Orion. In Vos, at least I’ll be fed. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go back, without a fuss, and give up. But they don’t beat me until I bring more slaves into this world for them to use and dispose of when they find it convenient.”
Orion took his servo and held it. In the morning, the Seeker was gone to whatever fate had in store for him. To whatever hell life had built for him.
But what he left behind burned in Orion’s spark: A need, never to allow the official story to become his truth. Never to let coverings be pulled over his optics again.
From now on, he would believe only what he could back up.